On the plus side, MOOCs are free, open to anyone and taught by professors at prestigious universities. On the downside, they have low completion rates, and critics questions the utility of students being graded by their peers. TIME is enrolling in several of these classes to see what all the fuss is about

MOOC may be a silly-sounding acronym, but this new breed of online classes is shaking up the higher education world in ways that could be good for cash-strapped students and terrible for cash-strapped colleges. Taking a class online might not sound revolutionary—after all, in the fall of 2010, 6.1 million students were enrolled in at least one online course. But those classes were pretty similar to the bricks-and-mortar kind, in that students paid fees to enroll in classes taught and graded by a professor and some teaching assistants. But MOOCs, short for massive open online courses, are a different animal. They can be taken by hundreds of thousands of students at the same time. And perhaps the most striking thing about MOOCs, many of which are being taught by professors at prestigious universities, is that they’re free.

Since MOOCs first made waves in the fall of 2011, when then-Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun opened his graduate-level artificial intelligence course up to any student anywhere and 160,000 students in more than 190 countries signed up, the free online classes have been heralded as revolutionary, the future, the single most important experiment that will democratize higher education and end the era of overpriced colleges. Thrun has even gone so far as to say he envisions a future in which there will only need to be 10 universities in the world. In January, he launched Udacity, a private educational organization, offering a dozen courses that anyone can sign up for and complete at his or her own pace; it now says it has more than 739,000 students. A similar company, created by two Stanford computer science professors, called Coursera, launched in April with four major university partners—Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. Since then, Coursera, which features humanities as well as science courses, has added more big-name partners, including Duke, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, and says it has one million registered students. The third major player in this space, edX, was launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in May. It has a more limited, high-level course catalog, but announced in July that the University of California-Berkeley was joining.

There is a lot of excitement and fear and overblown rhetoric surrounding MOOCs. While some say free, online courses are a great way to increase minority enrollment, others have said they will leave many students behind. Some critics have said that MOOCs promote an unrealistic one-size-fits-all model of higher education and that there is no replacement for true dialogue between a professor and his or her students. In a column for The New York Times in May, David Brooks said research has shown online education is roughly as effective as in-person learning, noting that online learning “seems especially useful in language and remedial education. But, he wrote, “A brain is not a computer. We are not blank hard drives waiting to be filled with data. People learn from people they love and remember the things that arouse emotion.” Some critics worry that online students will miss out on the social aspects of college.

Despite all the hype and the marquis players involved, the first few MOOCs have not been without issue. Of the thousands of students who have signed up for the classes, only about 10% complete them, and some professors have expressed concern that it’s nearly impossible to grade a student’s work if you have no way to verify if the student is in fact the person completing the work. Indeed, in the first few courses taught over the summer at Coursera, dozens of students in at least three classes complained that their work was copied by students. (Coursera added an honor code in response to the reports of plagiarism.) And even in this social-media savvy era, plenty of people are wondering how much students will learn in some MOOCs when it is their peers rather than their professors who are doing the grading.

To see what all the fuss is about, a handful of TIME editors and writers are signing up for MOOCs and will be blogging about the experience in order to give readers a sense of what it’s like to take a free, massive online course. Editor at Large Harry McCracken, a self-described gadget nerd who writes about consumer technology for the magazine and TIME.com, is enrolling in Coursera’s Gamification course to learn how digital game elements and design techniques apply to non-game business and social problems. Brad Tuttle, who covers personal finance, travel and parenting for TIME.com, will be taking Coursera’s Introduction to Mathematical Thinking. Writer-Reporter Nate Rawlings has already started Coursera’s Intro to Sustainability course (and scored 100% on his first quiz). And photo editor Alexander Ho will learn the basics of computer programming in Udacity’s Intro to Computer Science course.

As for me, I’ll be taking Coursera’s Securing Digital Democracy course—a timely class given the upcoming election—that will cover the risks and potential of electronic and Internet voting. This isn’t my first encounter with online education, although my previous experience was of the traditional variety. As part of my bachelor’s degree at the University of Washington, I took a web-based environmental science course. I took the class because I needed a science credit, and rumor had it the class was a breeze. The rumor was true: I didn’t watch a single lecture, but passed the class with an above-average grade by completing a group project and pulling an all-nighter before the final exam (which, by the way, was the only time I bothered to download the professor’s PowerPoint slides). Needless to say, I’m hoping with a little added investment on my part, my latest foray into online education will be much different from my first one. Then again, my Coursera class started yesterday, so I already have some catching up to do.

Kayla Webley is a Staff Writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @kaylawebley, on Facebook or on Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

Correction: The original version of this story stated that David Brooks said online is only roughly half as effective as classroom learning.

So far, only Harry McCracken has written about his experiences. Considering the 1/10 dropout rate of MOOCs, that isn't too surprising... but maybe you just haven't gotten around to writing about it yet, Time bloggers?

Completed my first Coursera course today, on Scala programming (by the designer of Scala himself, Martin Odersky). Though it wasn't the first I started, either ;-)

I do think you should do a brief writeup for us even if you dropped out.

While it's exciting to see more universities embrace online learning, it's worth noting that MOOCs aren't right for every student. MOOCs are offering students access to lectures and presentations from some of the nation's most well-respected universities and professors, which sounds great. But MOOCs really appeal to already well-educated people who are curious/interested/already in the field. In contrast, most students require access to highly interactive and fully developed online learning opportunities to grasp the concepts being presented. We believe that effective online learning must include collegial interaction, academic support services, and personalized attention, all things that are largely absent from the MOOC model.

While it's exciting to see more universities embrace online learning, the MOOCs are barely scratching the surface of what's possible in a well-conceived and delivered online learning environment. MOOCs are offering students access to lectures and presentations from some of the nation's most well-respected universities and professors, which sounds great. But, most students require access to highly interactive, student-focused and fully developed online learning opportunities to actually grasp the concepts being presented. We believe that effective online learning must include collegial interaction, academic support services, and personalize attention, all things that are largely absent from the MOOC model.

It's true that many educators are unwilling to acknowledge that MOOCs are missing the point in educating students. They appeal to already well-educated people who are curious/interested/already in the field. MOOCs also keep the lecture as the focal point of the course when in reality, effective teaching and learning requires much more than that. We believe it is critical that we improve education through an active learning model, enhance student and faculty engagement, provide continuous assessment, and use data to evaluate the effectiveness of what we are doing. We also want these learning environments, experiences, and contexts to be flexible, accessible, and beautiful.

While we are glad to see that institutions like Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Duke have finally come to realize the crucial need for online education, we encourage these institutions to look to others who have been developing, running and managing online learning programs for years now - because it's what our students need.

I, too have signed up for a MOOC course to further educate myself on the differences between online programs that provide great information from programs that provide great education.

I attend quite a few Coursera courses and I LOVE them. They are way better than most of my lectures in university were - they are more engaging, more structured, I even feel more contact with lecturer (kind of ironic, but true, if you are BA student, it is rare occasion that professors give any attention to you). Also I am more eager to actually learn stuff, not pass the quiz. First time on Model Thinking I did quite bad, but that made me to go back and check all the lectures of topics I did not do well.

As for credits and stuff, even though it would be nice to have some system that would track what you are learning online and to have something as evidence for employers, is the knowledge not valuable but itself? Why do we have to be so utilitarian and always think of it "will I earn money if I do this". I am excited just having this opportunity to have excellent quality information from professionals.

Lastly, yes, you can cheat the scores here. But you can also cheat at university. It is more difficult, but doable. And actually in most cases what I felt about university exams "I just want to get over with this stuff" - and I dont need to remember it after exam. Here I feel I really want to know. Why do we think that if people are MADE to do the course and exams it is so much more valuable when you just do it because you are interested and enjoy it.

While it’s exciting to see more universities embrace online learning, the MOOCs are barely scratching the surface of what’s possible in a well-conceived and delivered

online learning environment. MOOCs are offering students access to lectures and presentations from some of the nation’s most well-respected universities and professors, which sounds great. But, most students require access to highly interactive, student-focused and fully developed online learning opportunities to actually grasp the concepts being presented. We believe that effective online learning must include collegial interaction, academic support services, and personalized attention, all things that are largely absent from the MOOC model.

It’s true that many educators are unwilling to acknowledge that MOOCs are missing the point in educating students. They appeal to already well-educated people who are curious/interested/already in the field. MOOCs also keep the lecture as the focal point of the course when in reality, effective teaching and learning requires much more than that. We believe it is critical that we improve education through an active learning model, enhance student and faculty engagement, provide continuous assessment, and use data to evaluate the effectiveness of what we are doing. We also want these learning environments, experiences, and contexts to be flexible, accessible, and beautiful.

While we are glad to see that institutions like Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Duke have finally come to realize the crucial need for online education, we encourage these institutions to look to others who have been developing, running and managing online learning programs for years now—because it’s what our students need.

I, too have signed up for a MOOC course to further educate myself on the differences between online programs that provide great information from programs that provide great education.

Starting from an irrational Germany lady Gabriele Scheler’s atrocity crime on Stanford campus, there came a war between fascism and anti-fascism; and at this stage, fascism still prevails in our lives; Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler are just front figures we could see in this fascism circle, there is a whole pack of fascists behind them.

Gabriele Scheler’s campus atrocity on me, by which Sebastian Thrun and Eric Schmidt started a series of fascism crimes, is a simple case with clear evidence and with serious police investigation.

But how come Gabriele Scheler could come back and falsely accuse me for sexual assault to molest my life year after year without an end? How come the judicial officer could made up a sexual assault case against me without interviewing me even once? How could they assist Scheler to terrorize/extort Stanford without even showing me any testimony and evidence of such accusations against me? how could this case still not be clarified in judicial system after eight years? Because the crimes are not only coming from those criminals who had committed such crimes, but also coming from certain malicious officers (e.g. a powerful officer namely ZZZ from Santa Clara DA’s Office, and after ZZZ stepped down, another officer YYY, and also officer VVV who’s in charge of Gabriele Scheler’s case, and very likely officer RRR who insist May Zhou’s case is suicide or accident but not murder) who egregiously miscarriage of justice.

Gabriele Scheler had been rude to Japanese and South Korea Scholars (Asians) in the same office before she assaulted me; Sebastian Thrun collateralled with Gabriele Scheler to trap me while played a role in May Zhou’s case; Eric Schmidt, for Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler’s sake, had told me “May Zhou is an Asian, police may not even find out who did it …what if it happened to you?” And it did happen as Eric Schmidt predicted that police may not even find out who did it, which is really scary to me

I brought the case to the public because as a human being, anyone has the responsibility to crack down such fascism crimes which includes killing the innocent, conspire life of the victim, terrorize/extort authorities, corruption, miscarriage of justice, discrimination against Asian, etc.

Starting from an irrational Germany lady Gabriele Scheler’s atrocity crime on Stanford campus, there came a war between fascism and anti-fascism; and at this stage, fascism still prevails in our lives; Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler are just front figures we could see in this fascism circle, there is a whole pack of fascists behind them.Gabriele Scheler’s campus atrocity on me, by which Sebastian Thrun and Eric Schmidt started a series of fascism crimes, is a simple case with clear evidence and with serious police investigation.But how come Gabriele Scheler could come back and falsely accuse me for sexual assault to molest my life year after year without an end? How come the judicial officer could made up a sexual assault case against me without interviewing me even once? How could they assist Scheler to terrorize/extort Stanford without even showing me any testimony and evidence of such accusations against me? how could this case still not be clarified in judicial system after eight years? Because the crimes are not only coming from those criminals who had committed such crimes, but also coming from certain malicious officers (e.g. a powerful officer namely ZZZ from Santa Clara DA’s Office, and after ZZZ stepped down, another officer YYY, and also officer VVV who’s in charge of Gabriele Scheler’s case, and very likely officer RRR who insist May Zhou’s case is suicide or accident but not murder) who egregiously miscarriage of justice.Gabriele Scheler had been rude to Japanese and South Korea Scholars (Asians) in the same office before she assaulted me; Sebastian Thrun collateralled with Gabriele Scheler to trap me while played a role in May Zhou’s case; Eric Schmidt, for Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler’s sake, had told me “May Zhou is an Asian, police may not even find out who did it …what if it happened to you?” And it did happen as Eric Schmidt predicted that police may not even find out who did it, which is really scary to meI brought the case to the public because as a human being, anyone has the responsibility to crack down such fascism crimes which includes killing the innocent, conspire life of the victim, terrorize/extort authorities, corruption, miscarriage of justice, discrimination against Asian, etc.

Starting from an irrational Germany lady Gabriele Scheler’s atrocity crime on Stanford campus, there came a war between fascism and anti-fascism; and at this stage, fascism still prevails in our lives; Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler are just front figures we could see in this fascism circle, there is a whole pack of fascists behind them.

Gabriele Scheler’s campus atrocity on me, by which Sebastian Thrun and Eric Schmidt started a series of fascism crimes, is a simple case with clear evidence and with serious police investigation.

But how come Gabriele Scheler could come back and falsely accuse me for sexual assault to molest my life year after year without an end? How come the judicial officer could made up a sexual assault case against me without interviewing me even once? How could they assist Scheler to terrorize/extort Stanford without even showing me any testimony and evidence of such accusations against me? how could this case still not be clarified in judicial system after eight years? Because the crimes are not only coming from those criminals who had committed such crimes, but also coming from certain malicious officers (e.g. a powerful officer namely ZZZ from Santa Clara DA’s Office, and after ZZZ stepped down, another officer YYY, and also officer VVV who’s in charge of Gabriele Scheler’s case, and very likely officer RRR who insist May Zhou’s case is suicide or accident but not murder) who egregiously miscarriage of justice.

Gabriele Scheler had been rude to Japanese and South Korea Scholars (Asians) in the same office before she assaulted me; Sebastian Thrun collateralled with Gabriele Scheler to trap me while played a role in May Zhou’s case; Eric Schmidt, for Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler’s sake, had told me “May Zhou is an Asian, police may not even find out who did it …what if it happened to you?” And it did happen as Eric Schmidt predicted that police may not even find out who did it, which is really scary to me

I brought the case to the public because as a human being, anyone has the responsibility to crack down such fascism crimes which includes killing the innocent, conspire life of the victim, terrorize/extort authorities, corruption, miscarriage of justice, discrimination against Asian, etc.

I think this is a great way for people to learn new things, but without accreditation, they are just for fun. You can't get a job with free courses, you have to have a degree (or multiple degrees). I don't see how this could ever replace the University.

"David Brooks said research has shown online education is only half as effective as in-person learning." Brooks actually said, "Research into online learning suggests that it is roughly as effective as classroom learning. " http://nyti.ms/PGDKnK

University of California Berkeley prefers to charge Californians higher tuition. Public’s university harvests money, education taxes, families savings.. University of California Berkeley is nationally ranked #1 public university total academic cost (resident) with the Provost and Chancellor goal to ‘charge Californians higher tuition’. UC Berkeley tuition is rising faster than costs at other universities. Cal ranked # 2 in faculty earning potential. Believe it: Harvard College less costly.

University of California negates the promise of equality of opportunity: university access, affordability is farther and farther out of reach. Self-absorbed Chancellor Birgeneau, Provost Breslauer are outspoken for public Cal. ‘charging Californians much higher’ tuition. Chancellor, Provost leave an indelible legacy on access, affordability.

Birgeneau ($450,000) Breslauer ($306,000) like to blame the politicians, since they stopped giving them their demanded funding. The ‘charge Californians higher tuition’ skyrocketed fees by an average 14% per year from 2006 to 2011-12 academic years. If Chancellor Provost had allowed fees to rise at the same rate of inflation over the past 10 years they would still be in reach of most middle income students. Breslauer Bergeneau increase disparities in higher education and defeat the promise of equality of opportunity. An unacceptable legacy.

Additional state tax funding should sunset. The sluggish economy and 10% unemployment devistate family education savings. Simply asking for more taxes to fund self-absorbed Cal.senior leadership, old inefficient higher education practices, excessive faculty staff compensation and burdensome bonuses, is not the answer.

UC Berkeley is to maximize access to the widest number of Californians at a reasonable cost. Birgeneau’s Breslauer’s ‘charge Californians higher’ tuition’ denies middle income families the transformative value of Cal.

OK, before Web 2.0 was to revolutionize things, Web 1.0 was to revolutionize thing. Before that, "multimedia" were to revolutionize things. Before that, study tapes were to revolutionize things. And before that, self-study books were to revolutionize things.

The problem with all these methods is that often students don't even know how to do things right - they can't even tell whether they're remotely on the right track, and have no access to the people, classmates and the corpus of literature that can provide feedback.

But if you're learning the same content, you really should be able to get a job with it right? As long as you have the knowledge to do the job? But then University couldn't be used as an expensive gatekeeper. Why do we need a gatekeeper?

I'm three weeks into my first Coursera course and am thoroughly enjoying it. I do not believe that the learning experience is any worse than what I experienced during the 8 years I spent at university.

Yes, there are no full degree programmes and fancy certificates available yet. But at the end of the day people are being educated and learning skills, you can't take that away from them.

I feel that it is very narrow minded to believe that this will not help people improve themselves in the workplace.

All the methods of educating one's self that you mention have limits. University courses have limits. As a career educator who has looked at this material in depth, I see well resourced syllabi that provide plenty of opportunities for the student to expand understanding, answer questions, and fill in gaps. My prediction is that future courses will offer discussion boards (as most university courses now do) in which students use their computers for discourse with fellow students and eliminate frustration by offering a way of asking questions and getting answers.

I didn't say it wouldn't help improve a person's opportunities in the workplace, but that some jobs require a degree (tenured teaching positions at Universities, becoming a doctor, a teacher, a police officer). Until life experience and knowledge all that is needed for employment, free courses are best for personal development. You do like to know your doctor has been trained under a specific set of rules and requirements, don't you?

These courses are not made to license anyone for a profession, but they can certainly serve as a way to enhance learning for a busy professional or allow a student to explore the field without poring a lot of money into it only to find he is not really as interested as he thought. They could provide advancement for professionals in their fields just as night classes at colleges now do. They could also serve as the first step for college enrollment in which students can test out of required CORE courses like they do with AP exams, saving both time and money. MOOS are not meant to totally replace a degree.